Arnold Schwarzenegger is back for a second season of FUBAR, but first, a recap of last season’s events. The last time we saw Schwazenegger’s Luke Brunner and company, they were on the run from some goons. That’s because their information is now available to every mercenary that Luke and his team crossed from way back. Also, someone from the team, Barry (Milan Carter), fell in love with Tina (Aparna Brielle), an NSA – CIA agent who is actually a Russian spy.

For this season, a safe house contains two groups of people – the team and some loved ones. The loved ones are stuck at home while the team can still go out and do missions. They’re looking for a mysterious Dante Cress who wants to destroy four points within America’s power grid. As with last season, Luke and his daughter Emma (Monica Barbaro) are occasionally at odds with each other.

Luke and Emma can still work together especially after finding out who Tina is really working for. He’s still, however, at odds with his wife Tally (Fabiana Udenio) even after he tells her everything. Home troubles get him closer to his former Stasi lover and one of Cress’ minions, Greta Nelso (Carrie-Anne Moss). Even though she’s ‘bad’, Luke and Greta’s showdowns hint at a larger terror attack they need to stop.

Yes, FUBAR is a television reworking of True Lies, a film on an ever growing watch list. The series still has the same problems i.e. that he’s a movie star allergic to acting lessons. Perhaps I wasn’t fair to him last season because comedy has been in his wheelhouse for decades. He’s competent both during interrogation scenes and scenes where he has to do throwbacks to 90s catchphrases.

The thing about television series is that each season feels like a new beginning to try something new. Last season’s villain, Boro Polonia (Gabriel Luna), was competent, but he always felt secondary to Luke. Apparently what this series needed is a more compelling villain in the form of Greta, a femme fatale with a sickening bob. Carrie-Anne Moss sells the idea that her permuting motivations all root from her unrequited love of Luke. This series shows that love is a bit annoying and without giving anything away, Luke isn’t the only one with a new love interest.

This series, however, won’t work without Schwarzenegger, coming into FUBAR with a similar POV but with tweaks. Watching this series reminds me of the shift from Terminator to Terminator 2, where he becomes a good guy. At first this felt like grand standing from a movie star, but it speaks to something larger. He’s in a series that believes that bureaucracy is bad but people are good, the latter an interesting POV in a spy comedy.

FUBAR is available to stream on Netflix.